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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29426910">True and Tender</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador'>El Staplador (elstaplador)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Arranged Marriage, F/F, Failure to Communicate, Happy Ending, Royalty, Treat</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 13:21:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,779</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29426910</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/elstaplador/pseuds/El%20Staplador</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Arleia of Floren is marrying Emès Ninrade - which isn't exactly a surprise; they've been betrothed for two decades. What Sanra Ninrade makes of it is another matter entirely...</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Female Royal Who's About to Get Arranged-Married/Her Fiancé's Sister, Original Female Character/Original Female Character</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Chocolate Box - Round 6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>True and Tender</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/categranger/gifts">categranger</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>She remembered before she even opened her eyes.</p>
<p><i>It won’t be so bad</i>, she told herself. <i>He’s kind, and honourable, and clever. We can talk about… horses. And books.</i></p>
<p>The drapes around the unfamiliar bed made dense shadows. It was not yet dawn.</p>
<p>They had travelled six days to get here. Her father, her mother, her two brothers, and all the retinue befitting their state trailing behind them, and all for her sake. The affairs of two kingdoms had ground to a halt so that Arleia, only daughter of the Floren monarchs, could marry Emès, second son of Larion of Oade. And it almost seemed that every citizen of those two kingdoms had turned out to watch them on their progress. Mile after mile of cheering, clapping, flag-waving, supporters, all of them far happier about it than she could ever be.</p>
<p>Then the banquet: Larion and his second wife, not much older than Arleia was herself; Sanra, not meeting her eye; Emès, the stranger who was about to become her husband; dukes and barons, countesses and marchionesses; the buzz of courtesy filling the echoing hall and crowding around her.</p>
<p>Now she was alone. Every Ninrade bride had spent the night before the wedding in this stately chamber. It was warm; the bed was comfortable; but she had slept badly, and woken early. The room faced east, so that the occupant would be woken gently by the rising sun. She had not needed the sun.</p>
<p>She sat up in bed. Her hands trembled a little.</p>
<p>
  <i>He’ll be away a lot of the time. He won’t always need me to travel with him.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>And at least I’ll be close to Sanra.</i>
</p>
<p>That was not as comforting as it should have been. Sanra wasn’t talking to her, or, rather, was restricting herself to the elaborate, mannered, formal conversation that was entirely appropriate to their new relationship, of which every word was a sting in the heart.</p>
<p>And if they ever did recover the easy friendship of their early years, it would be worse, because it would always remind her of how much more it could have been, how much more she’d wanted it to be.</p>
<p>They would never be able to go back to that wonderful month last summer when Sanra was in her country on a state visit, when Arleia had been deputed to offer her fitting hospitality, when catering to Sanra’s every whim had been Arleia’s delight. State business had been easy; long sunny days walking in the mountains, riding in the forest, music, and masquing, and late informal suppers. No pleasure that the Master of the Revels could devise could match the way the sun struck gold flecks in Sanra’s dark hair, no music was so sweet as Sanra’s laugh. It had been as much a holiday as a duty; it had been the happiest time of Arleia’s life.</p>
<p>Until the last night. There’d been a reception at the palace, but this had finished at an early hour in anticipation of Sanra’s long journey home. She’d sworn that she was not at all tired, however, and so they walked hand-in-hand in the gardens, down the long promenade that led down to the fishpond. The moon was close to full; the fish flitted silently around the pool; the fountain spattered cool drops of water on the thirsty gravel.</p>
<p>‘Thank you,’ Sanra said. ‘I’ve never enjoyed a state visit more.’</p>
<p>‘It has been a pleasure,’ Arleia said. ‘You know that.’ She sat down on the rim of the fountain bowl, and Sanra came to sit next to her, leaned companionably up against her side. Arleia put an arm around her shoulders, and felt Sanra’s hand reach around her waist.</p>
<p>She shifted slightly to be able to see Sanra’s face. Laughter had given way to seriousness there, contentment to anticipation. Her eyes were wide and dark, and Arleia suddenly couldn’t breathe. All month this had been about to happen, and now that it was she was overwhelmed.</p>
<p>It was Sanra who began the kiss; Arleia only pressed it further, loving the feel of Sanra’s mouth under hers, Sanra’s hands in her hair, the cool spray of water from the fountain, the scent of warm skin and rosewater.</p>
<p>Suddenly, Sanra broke away, burying her face in her hands. ‘We can’t. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have… We can’t. Not if you really are going to marry my brother.’</p>
<p>They hadn’t mentioned that until then. Arleia had thought they hadn’t needed to: now she saw that she should have raised the matter at the beginning, shouldn’t have let herself dream. ‘I don’t see what else I can do,’ she’d said, miserable beyond anything she’d ever imagined.</p>
<p>She’d always known it would have to happen, sooner or later. She’d always known about the betrothal; it had preserved peace on the border for twenty years. Nothing was worth risking that. If her happiness was the price of peace, well, she would pay it. Oh, but she hadn’t thought that the price would be so high.</p>
<p>Sanra had said, ‘There are some things I can do, and some I can’t. And if I do this – and I want to, so, so badly – I’ll never be able to look you in the eye again.’</p>
<p>Arleia had known then that they’d already gone too far, that all possible futures after this involved a broken heart. She’d kept her temper, but shame and hurt had driven her to make her excuses and leave Sanra to retire early, robbed what little they might have made of that last night.</p>
<p>In the morning they were speaking in formal diplomatics once again. And then Arleia had watched Sanra’s carriage roll down the avenue away from the palace, and had bit her lip to keep the tears in her eyes: the first day’s practice in a lifetime of learning how not to care about what Sanra did and where she went.</p>
<p>She sighed, and crossed the room to open the window. The sky had lightened from deep blue to soft grey, and one long, low streak of cloud was tinted underneath with vivid red.</p>
<p>She jumped at the sound of a low whistle. Deciding that it must have come from outside, she pushed the casement a little further open.</p>
<p>‘Arleia!’ A soft voice, but pitched to carry.</p>
<p>Her heart leapt. So much for convincing herself that she didn’t care. ‘Sanra!’</p>
<p>‘Wait.’</p>
<p>A strange sound came from below: leaning out of the window, she determined that Sanra was climbing up the creeper.</p>
<p>‘You’ll break your neck!’</p>
<p>‘Hush!’</p>
<p>Sanra got a knee up on the windowsill, clung on to the casement, and pressed a kiss to Arleia’s cheek – a chaste kiss, no different from the cold kiss they’d exchanged last night, but oh, how much more promising! ‘Come inside.’</p>
<p>Sanra reached inside to undo the catch on the other window, pushed it open, and sat on the windowsill. ‘I can’t. If anyone’s looking, they need to see that it’s me. Your reputation, otherwise…’</p>
<p>It was good sense, dizzy as it made her to see Sanra framed by empty air. ‘What are you doing, anyway?’</p>
<p>‘Seeing if you’ll run away with me.’</p>
<p>Arleia laughed. So much for her reputation. ‘If I would, you wouldn’t want me to.’</p>
<p>Sanra nodded. ‘It’s true. But tell me – if it weren’t for the border, if it weren’t for the treaty, if it weren’t for the betrothal, if you weren’t Arleia of Floren and I weren’t Sanra of Ninrade, would you?’</p>
<p>‘You know I would!’ She added, ‘Though I don’t know who I’d be if all those things weren’t true.’</p>
<p>‘Nor me. But it doesn’t matter. I had to know, that’s all.’ She kissed Arleia swiftly on the lips, and stretched out a leg to find the sturdiest branch.</p>
<p>‘Sanra!’</p>
<p>‘Yes?’ She looked up.</p>
<p>‘Would <em>you</em>?’</p>
<p>‘Oh, I can do better than that.’</p>
<p>She slid out of sight. The sun was rising.</p>
<p><br/>The bride wore no veil, as was the custom here: the Petruline wars of three centuries ago had been ignited when the Ollow queen sent her youngest daughter instead of her eldest one to be married to the man who was later Aurin III.</p>
<p>The groom, too, was not veiled. Courtesy goes both ways. And – this was a change to what had been advertised – he was supported not by his elder brother, the crown prince, but by his sister. And – which was also unexpected – she did not step back to her seat when she had seen him safely to the table, but stayed standing next to him.</p>
<p>‘Who stands here?’</p>
<p>The bride’s voice was low but steady. ‘Arleia of Floren.’</p>
<p>The groom seemed to have been afflicted by nerves, for he laughed as he spoke. ‘Emès of Ninrade, with Sanra of Ninrade.’</p>
<p>The Floren party shuffled and whispered. The officiant frowned, but continued with the appropriate words. ‘Why come you here?’</p>
<p>The bride was silent, and now it was the Ninrades who raised their eyebrows and turned to each other in concern.</p>
<p>‘Why come you here?’ the officiant repeated.</p>
<p>‘I come to be wed,’ said the bride.</p>
<p>‘And why come <em>you</em> here?’</p>
<p>‘I come to be wed.’ But it was not the groom who spoke; it was his supporter, and now there was a startled buzz of exclamations, swiftly hushed, as the congregation watched and listened to see what would happen next. ‘I come to ask, in this most sacred place, claiming the sanctuary of the same, for the hand of Arleia of Floren.’</p>
<p>Now Emès spoke: ‘And I come to ask, in this most sacred place, claiming the sanctuary of the same, that my sister take on my betrothal to the same Arleia of Floren and the obligations concerned therewith.’</p>
<p>Arleia spoke quickly: sanctuary was sanctuary, but humans were humans, and this was an insult until she nullified it. ‘And I come to declare that the course proposed here is agreeable to me in every particular, and that I petition the monarchs my parents to agree to the same.’</p>
<p>‘It’s not as easy as that,’ somebody muttered: possibly it was King Larion, who had two rebellious children to deal with, not just one.</p>
<p>Anyway, it was true, and also not true at all.</p>
<p><br/>There was no question of their marrying that day. There were treaties to be rewritten, messengers to be sent out to north and south and east and west, documents to be signed and sealed. But there was good enough reason for a feast as there had been before, and as much merriment and more joy than had been expected.</p>
<p>Arleia went back to the bride’s chamber that night, and Sanra came to join her – through the door.</p>
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